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Boehner: Fought the good fight

McCain on Republican divide

At the beginning of October, Republicans decided against funding the government to try to force Democrats to change Obamacare. Sixteen days later, it remains fully funded, and President Barack Obama is expected to sign a debt ceiling increase and extension of government funding without giving up a single thing.

The data points are overwhelming. The party is wildly unpredictable, as was evident during this national roller-coaster ride. Even top figures in the House Republican universe can’t completely figure out what their 232-member conference thinks at any given moment. Outside groups still proved they hold outsized sway on Capitol Hill.

Despite tossing and turning for weeks, Republicans led by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) ended up extracting exactly no concessions from the Obama administration in the final deal that was heading for a vote Wednesday evening. Almost every time their leadership came up with a plan to redirect the debate, it was knocked down.

Despite a party-wide pledge to rebrand after the 2012 elections, House Republicans spent more than two weeks in a wrestling match while Democrats held firm. As the Obamacare rollout proved disastrous for much of this month, much of the media and nation’s focus remained on a shuttered government and loud protests on the National Mall.

Talk to House Republicans, and almost everyone agrees: the Senate-brokered deal to lift the debt ceiling and reopen government marks a big fat loss for them. Asked flatly if his party is using their majority, Georgia Rep. Lynn Westmoreland said flatly, “no, we’re not.”

“You have to show courage,” he said. “We got 232 votes. Reid has 54. We’ve got the majority and the House is where all the spending bills are supposed to originate.”

It wasn’t all bad news for House Republicans. At many moments during this debate, they appeared unified in strategy and in tactics.

Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) urged them Wednesday afternoon to keep the fight up, and focus on what holds the party together, not what tears it apart. Boehner, Cantor and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) appear to have emerged from this fight with a massive well of internal capital. They fought a fight they didn’t pick, and saw it to its conclusion. Despite a pummeling in public polls, there appears to be no coup attempts brewing against any members of the leadership. Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), who many people believe to be influential conservatives, are publicly backing Boehner.

The conventional wisdom is that Republicans learned from this fight, and won’t put their party through this again. But many of their members say the lesson they learned is President Barack Obama is not willing to negotiate, and repealing the Obamacare is a fantasy — for now. The majority of them are gearing up for another fight in a few weeks. Government funding runs dry again Jan. 15, the debt ceiling will be reached Feb. 7 and a budget conference has to report findings by Dec. 13.

“The lesson that we learned is our constituents are behind us,” Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) said. “They’re very supportive of what we’re doing.”